"If you look at the history of abortion, it seesaws between federal and state legislation and federal and state courts," said R. Alto Charo, a professor of bioethics at the University of Wisconsin.
Its lyrics seesawed between hard-nosed and amiable, but they usually led to blithely catchy heys and oohs, ready for woozy, sunny singalongs.
In a nicely turned piece from the 1880's, "Handsome" by Ms. Son, the mutual attraction, comically rendered, between a privileged white woman and a Chinese immigrant worker turns painful as it seesaws on the fulcrum between taboo and the status quo.
The company has been vulnerable to a takeover bid as its fortunes have seesawed between a brief revival under the former chairman, Luc Vandevelde, and a renewed slide.
But only one part; it was a day of music that seesawed between the past and, if not the future, at least a glance at the forward-looking side of the present.
Ms. Thomas seesawed between sultriness and ache in "It's Raining" and "Ruler of My Heart".
It was one linchpin of a concert that seesawed between facing mortality — full of songs about death — and a stubborn determination to live fully.
"Joy to the Person of My Love," an anonymous 17th-century Scottish song, was an artfully convoluted tune that seesawed between major and minor keys as it alternated praise for a beautiful woman with lamentation that she was "forbidden fruit".
It was a homey touch in a slick, good-natured show that seesawed between clinging love songs and declarations of female independence.
In "Tania," about the media spectacle around the kidnapping of Patty Hearst, it used a minor-key, Russian-flavored arrangement, while "She Divines Water" seesawed between waltz and rock.
Haynes seesawed between good periods and bad.
